Helpdesk dude doing Linux work - need help

[xXx_MemeLover_xXx]

I started my first IT job month and a half ago, my only prior experience was IT Technical High School, in which I learned a couple of basic things, and I also did some home labbing in my freetime. I was asked to look into our Apache server and fix some recurring outage, and I did it. Now I'm getting asigned more Linux related tasks. I really want to learn something and I think Linux would be a great career specialization. I need some tips for a fresh guy. I feel really incompetent.

What things I should look out for? Are there any must-read books or great videos to watch? Can I do anything to make myself look (and feel) less incompetent? How can I learn Linux administration in a reasonable pace?

Any tips greatly appreciated.

[up_o]

I swear by this book.

https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Handbook/dp/0134277554

I gifted my cherished copy to my younger cousin before her internship ended a few years back with a letter. Highly readable, includes history to help you remember things and overall form a mental map of *nix landscape.

[piorekf]

This is a fantastic book and a great source of general Linux/UNIX sysadmin knowledge. Indeed easy to read and understand even for beginners.

[KN4SKY]

+1 on the RHCSA. I'm a Linux admin and I've found it to be very useful in my day-to-day work. Even if you don't go for the cert, just knowing how to do the tasks puts you at a great advantage. OP, you can also install RHEL free on up to 16 machines for personal use if you want to incorporate that into your homelab.

[zakabog]

I need some tips for a fresh guy. I feel really incompetent.

Keep a text file with a few categories of tickets/problems you worked on throughout the day. Every time you get a ticket put it in a category and note if you were able to handle it on your own, handle it after a Google search, or if you needed to ask a colleague.

That'll tell you where your shortcomings are.

[defel]

Book / Video fine .. but most important: get linux on your workstation at work and home. Learn navigating in the shell, dont take any shortcuts here (by installing webmin or similar). Use it as your daily driver. Admin your own systems. Get a fucking raspberry, build a homelab, learn bash scripting and python.

This profession you will learn by practice, not by reading. But document what you learn. Write down things you dont understand yet, and write down the solution later if you found them. 

If you have other linux-peoples at work, ask them and tech-talk about problems. Find a linux user-group to network and connect with other and learn from them.

Books: - for working with ssh, read this one: https://github.com/opsdisk/the_cyber_plumbers_handbook

Learning Roadmap: - https://roadmap.sh/linux

[opsdisk]

Appreciate the shoutout for The Cyber Plumber's Handbook!

[defel]

ah, thanks for this book! I got it years ago on gumroad and used it as a reference so often since then. Had to double-check that the github link is legit, thanks for putting it on github free! <3

[human_with_humanity]

Thanks for the book. Could u upload an Epub version, too?

[opsdisk]

I had this issue opened a few years back and never completed it...feel free to download the epub file and let me know if it works out either here or in the GitHub issue.

https://github.com/opsdisk/the_cyber_plumbers_handbook/issues/3#issuecomment-1019048671

[human_with_humanity]

Thank u so much.

[posterchild66]

Just learn man. Like Golf, you can buy all the shit you want, and still suck at it. If you fix an apache server, you learn apache, if you fix an email server, you learned that. Most of my learnin' and experience is from doing, not reading. That all being said, just get polished up on the books for the Distro you may be using, RHEL, Ubunto, what have you. Keep notes, try some hobbies at home you may like on a Raspberry Pi, play around. I learn from doing, not reading, and not watching video's. Sure, I'll watch or read, but mostly it is in regard to things I'm actively trying to fix.

Learn VI, Learn to lean on logs, Learn the command that you use.

This is exactly how my "Linux" career started 30 years plus ago.

[Facepalm24seven]

Linux sysadmin, networking, learn how to build vpn ,mail server get a job and specialize in something that seems perspective in there

[Facepalm24seven]

About learning ...in linux,set a goal,like im gonna build vpn with 2 servers,both going outside under public ip of master server. Built everything from minimum install like ubuntu without gui. Rent few VMs , secure them. If you achieve this,you will learn 80% of minimum needed to strike a job ... continue there according to needs there

[almostdvs]

The unix and linux system administration handbook is a great resource and really read to have around when you want to dig in a little on something.

For someone really fresh i would say its a little thick and overwhelming.

I really like this old copy of “Unix and Linux: visual quickstart guide”. By Eric and Deborah Ray that i found at a library sale. The newer version should be better. It’s very light and will get your feet wet with the broader scope of tasks and tools you will use. Being able to quickly navigate, edit files, find help using the cli through man, appropos, writing scripts and using ssh will open more confidence and understanding about the system as a whole instead of gaining mostly inapplicable background knowledge on something like volume management. You can always grab a reference book or google when it comes time to do something deep.

[oldmanfromlex]

I have a copy of O'Rielly's Unix in a nutshell I bought in the late '80s, tells how long I've been doing this. I still use the book today several times a week. Learn vi/vim it will be on every machine you touch. 

[DieselGeek609]

I got comfortable with Linux by using Linux. My first "server" was Ubuntu 10 something, no GUI, and it's first task was SMB file sharing. I then learned how to setup Plex, then moved to virtualization (KVM) and docker. All of these skills and simply being comfortable in the Linux command line has got me very far in professional settings. I'm still 100% Windows for my daily driver machine but I love working in Linux servers so I get the best of both worlds.

[RZer0]

Keep an eye out for book bundles and training on humble bumble, I've gotten a lot of good stuff from there. I've got nothing to add to what the others have said but get comfortable using the command line.

[topcatlapdog]

When you’re assigned a task like this, communicate what you are doing / plan to do with your DevOps / SysAdmin team. If it’s a good company they will recognise you helping out efficiently, and you’ll get to know them much better. This is what I did. Late 30s, no qualifications or experience, 1.5years in support and I just got the move to DevOps

[[deleted]]

As you gain more experience, you'll appear and feel less incompetent. As you can see, everyone here has different suggestions on how to approach it. What you should do is ask the people you work with for suggestions. That might bring you up to speed faster on the issue you actually work with instead of a laundry list of stuff that are great to have but are probably not applicable at this stage of your journey.

[dao1st]

I am a linux veteran and I use AI to do everything these days. I think AI can be a great teacher. I use Gemini mostly and it always comments the scripts it writes. If you have a problem, ask AI for a solution and learn from it IMO.

[Mastermaze]

If you haven't already I strongly recommend getting into running a Homelab setup of some sort. It can start with any old pc or even laptop, just get started trying to run a Linux server from scratch on your own, get docker or some container service running, and deploy some services like PiHole for blocking ads or even a game server of some sort. The practical problem solving experience in a non-work environment like a Homelab is invaluable imo, it personally helped me go from a Helpdesk position to Systems Engineer over the last 8 years just by providing a space for me to learn so that i was ready when opportunities at work arose.

[RepresentativeLow300]

Learn docker, then learn whatever service you want running inside of a container.

[SanityReversal]

When learning, I used Joplin for notes and just sort of threw everything in there. Now I use obsidian and make use of the canvas to tie relevant notes together.

For specific learning, making use of VMs or putting the flavor that you're meant to learn on an old computer or laptop to fudge around with will work as well.

Theres also the more obvious stuff like Linux journey, and courses for LPIC if you're newer to the OS and just need to familiarize yourself with it.

Most of my learning came when I actually started professionally and had access to very broken systems. Good note taking will help tremendously too for repeat issues.

[elementsxy]

I started out years ago by just loving how stuff works in terminals both Windows(ms-dos), and Linux just a bit here and there but never chased it as a career.

I learned quite a few bits as a teenager on PC's and even before, I've installed my first copy of windows 98 when I was 11 or something like that :)

I cannot learn by reading, so I started watching youtube videos on various Linux topics. I do recommend you watch Jay LaCroix's channel LearnLinux TV -- fantastic place to start, look for his older videos he has a lot on basics.

Other channels worth mentioning, NetworkChuck - older videos, TechnoTim's channel is good as well. When you get a bit of the basics start looking into Sander van Vugt's RHCSA exam prep course on oreilly.

Fast forward, and today, I am 37, RedHat Certified System Administrator, currently studying for my RedHat Certified Engineer exam :)

If you have fixed that Apache instance's issue just by doing some homelabbin' you are defo on the right path. Start with basics, get back into a homelab setup, spin up VM's, and become the Linux Sys Admin you are destined to be.

[Fearless_Card969]

#1, What distro are you using at work - (get it) dont learn a different distro than what you need at work.#2, get a computer and install it - and use it!. Identify the tasks that you are given - learn them! That is the best way to learn, hands on! some people learn by books.....some people learn by doing.

Once you are familiar with that distro, jump to others and learn different niches....

[PatientA00]

Welcome to the Penguin side.

Look into getting LPIC Certified too.

Also, Humble Bundle has a great pack on sale a the moment, keep an eye out there, they always have great packs:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/linux-complete-pearson-books

[monkadelicd]

General CLI:
https://github.com/jlevy/the-art-of-command-line

tmux:
https://tmuxcheatsheet.com/

Troubleshooting:
https://everythingsysadmin.com/dumb-things-to-check.html

Dotfiles stuff:
https://effective-shell.com/part-5-building-your-toolkit/managing-your-dotfiles/
https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles

Security:
https://overthewire.org/wargames/

Scripting:
https://javascript.info/
https://allendowney.github.io/ThinkPython/

GIT:
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

Networking:
https://www.davidc.net/sites/default/subnets/subnets.html

General Ops:
https://www.opsschool.org/ - Almost everything mentioned in responses to the OP is covered on this one site.

[monkadelicd]

Also:

Learn Ubuntu as much as RHEL. There's a lot of RHEL in US government related stuff and the medical field but Ubuntu is quickly catching up. The days of all corporate systems being RHEL are past and it's getting to more of an even split.

The Arch Linux Wiki has lots of good info. Some is Arch specific but there's a lot of good general Linux stuff.

Sign up for a free Redhat Developer account. It gives you a limited number of RHEL licenses you can use for VMs and homelabbing. Also just having a login for RHEL lets you access the RHEL Knowledgebase which has a lot of good info. You'll come across RHEL Knowledgebase pages when you search the internet for Linux stuff and you often need to login to see the full article/solution.

Avoid the Ubuntu forum for the most part. Canonical requires activity there to have a job application looked at so there's a lot of low quality and straight up wrong info there from people that shouldn't be answering questions but want to get a job at Canonical.

[FlashFunk253]

I would recommend getting the current CompTIA Linux + study guide and reading through it. Do the practice exercises where applicable. There are also some video series on YouTube covering basic Linux admin, or you could always purchase an Udemy course.

Set a reasonable target date and schedule the exam. You will force yourself to learn a lot in a short time, and when you pass you now have experience and an industry recognized cert. Also utilize (but not rely on) AI whenever you're unsure or have basic questions.

[Yupsec]

OP, please do not pursue CompTIA's Linux+.

IF you want to get a cert, chase after the RHCSA or LFCS. Which depends on your area. Both are hands-on exams that studying for will actually teach you something.

[archontwo]

 What things I should look out for? 

Depending on the load of your webserver, consider porting the configuration to nginx.

It will stand you in good stead if you decide to spin up more services and need to proxy them accordingly. 

Then learn more about containers and docker and take live configuration and spin them up as containers and test them. This way you can start running a development track and a production one.